Abstract
Superintendents face numerous challenges navigating the turbulence within districts created by employee turnover that follows implementation of turnaround policies. Literature on educational policy, the superintendency, and resilience calls for researchers to examine how mindfulness supports leadership for improving instructional services to increase student achievement while balancing multiple problems that attend heightened instability and decreased satisfaction of school personnel. Over a two-year period of study, observations, interviews, and artifacts were gathered and analyzed to describe the experience of a new superintendent who led the turnaround process in a small urban district. Balancing the various demands that attend leading a turnaround district is no small feat and includes responsibilities related to: building relationships with the school board, district staff, and community; hiring and firing of cabinet members, campus level administrators, and teachers; revamping instructional and evaluation practices, while seeking to build trust with stakeholders; bringing predictability and voice in district governance. High stakes accountability may be a tool for change, but it is mindfully serving students and families that nurtures resilience.
Highlights
The removal of poorly performing personnel from low achieving schools is an underlying purpose and principle of recent educational policies (Kutash et al, 2010; Ravitch, 2010)
Schools in the district receive many students with interrupted formal education (SIFE) as well as varying levels of education from other places, and many high school students are new to the country
Through our description and analysis we have attempted to show that the skill and energy involved in responding to various demands that arise from the instability in district personnel, in addition to that which is required by normal education operations, are no small feat
Summary
The removal of poorly performing personnel from low achieving schools is an underlying purpose and principle of recent educational policies (Kutash et al, 2010; Ravitch, 2010). Recognizing the deleterious impact on student learning from teacher dissatisfaction and turnover, advocates of educational reform call for inquiry about ways to mitigate these pitfalls (Murphy, 2009). Murphy & Meyers (2009) invite researchers to investigate and make recommendations concerned with policy and practice refinement. Limited and contradictory findings from research on the efficacy of turnover strategies in both education (e.g., Malen & Rice, 2004) and organizational studies (e.g., Messersmith, Lee, Guthrie, & Ji, 2014) support the need for further examination of how turnover is perceived and experienced by school personnel
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